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The Multitouch conundrum

Sunday, 07 February 2010 00:00 |

Does the Nexus One do Multitouch? Basically the answer to this is "yes", but there are some things worth noting.

  • The N1 is currently available in US, UK, Singapore and Hong Kong only. The first devices shipped for these regions all have multitouch available on a hardware level. Third-party applications downloadable from the Android Market can make use of these capabilities, thus offering multitouch on a software level. Android's own programs (the browser, the photo gallery and Google Maps) however did not support multitouch.
  • Is was rumored that multitouch was not made available in US because of software patents held by Apple. These rumors are supported by the fact that the first test devices for the European market do offer multitouch.
  • However, in a surprising move, Google rolled out an Android update on 5th February, enabling multitouch on devices that previously didn't have it. You can now zoom in and out of pictures and browser pages in the same way as on the iPhone ("pinch-to-zoom"). This is great news for early adopters, as they will not have to resort to homebrew hacks or something like that. Below is a video I made of my N1 using multitouch.
  • It seems that from this point onwards all N1s worldwide offer an unlimited multitouch experience. This can't be guaranteed though (due to the patent issue), so I'll try to keep up with the news and update the article when necessary.

 

 

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Getting the Nexus One online in UK with an O2 SIM

Sunday, 31 January 2010 00:00 |

Since the Nexus One isn't directly available in UK yet, it doesn't come with the settings needed for automatically getting it online (via GPRS, EDGE, 3G or HSDPA) and sending MMS in the British networks. The settings depend on your provider and your tariff (prepaid or contract). I'm on the "Online simplicity 10" tariff of O2 with unlimited web bolt on, which I assume falls in the category of contract tariffs. After trying out various settings found on the internet, I finally found one where both browsing and MMS works for me.

In order to set up the information for a new APN (Access Point Name), proceed as follows: First, navigate to the Settings screen of Android, e.g. by pressing the Options button when being in the main screen. Then

"Wireless & networks" -> "Mobile networks" -> "Access Point Names" -> Options button -> "New APN"

and enter the following information (the "O2" in the username is the same as the company, i.e. a capital letter):

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My Nexus One arrived!

Wednesday, 27 January 2010 00:00 |

So I finally got my paws on the long-awaited Google phone AKA Nexus One today. After a long and unpleasant battle with NatWest my credit card payment cleared, and the phone was shipped from the US on 22nd January. It took only three days to arrive at my place in UK. That's quite amazing, especially since I was warned that the personal engraving on the back cover (see below) could take up to 72 hours.

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